


A Tasteful Waltz

by thorin_ohhhkenshield (thorinlock)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dancer Sherlock, First Dance, First Kiss, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Sherlock Holmes Teaches John Watson to Dance, john is kinda gloating, sherlock deduces his attraction to john
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 08:55:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5660428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thorinlock/pseuds/thorin_ohhhkenshield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock teaches John how to dance, but John has something of his own to teach Sherlock as well. </p><p>Prompt: Write something incorporating the five senses</p><p>*Apologies for the length, but I wanted to try something more elaborate</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Tasteful Waltz

"Dancing is thinking, John," Sherlock said as he moved about the flat like a mechanized tornado, navigating destructively yet precisely through the tables and chairs and piles of mess, shoving them out of the way to make a clear, wide space in the middle. "It is a way of knowing."

"Knowing what?" John asked, heart thumping in his chest as he stood at a corner of the flat watching Sherlock clear the dance floor, so to speak. John had never been more nervous - he was not a dancer, neither did he desire to be one; he only took part in this odd cultural practice of performing the dictated gyrations of body parts for its sheer ritualistic value - that people still thought it was in any way a contribution to human communication was a puzzle to him.

"Why, knowing oneself, and knowing the other. Dance involves the cathartic total usage of the human body to interact, inform, and express, and in so doing the dancer, and his partner, if any, are engaged in a non-verbal dialogue of the soul, communicating ideas and thoughts too deeply felt to be conveyed by simple words," Sherlock finished in a flurry and turned to face John, standing squarely in the middle of their living room.

 _"What?!"_ John scarcely managed to sputter. Never mind that he barely understood what Sherlock said, the fact that Sherlock spoke of the soul, of expression, of _knowing in a way that was not knowing at all_ and "too deeply felt to be conveyed by simple words..." John was shocked, truly, to the point that he didn't know how to react. 

Sherlock rolled his eyes and sighed exasperatedly, saying through gritted teeth,

"We've been through this before."

"What?"

"What is the matter with you, did your tongue swell? Is there an anti-allergen we need to be getting for you? We've been through the fact that I know dance, been through it many, many times in fact, no thanks to your endless questions, and however much that information might still unthinkably surprise you, you need to drop it because you need to get this done."

"Must I?"

"John, the waltz is an expressive form; it's an exploration of intimacy, but tastefully. Think of it in this sappy way, it might help you along."

"What was that you said - about communicating with the soul..." John continued on with a cheeky grin.

"Do keep up, John, unless all this amuses you so much that you rather us stand here and have a conversation about it?" Sherlock spat, becoming visibly irritated. 

John couldn't help but smile, the corner of his mouth raising involuntarily at the sight of The Great Detective, the fabled mastermind Sherlock Holmes of unparalleled intellect and sociopathic demeanour standing expectantly in the middle of their living room still in his robe and messy hair, fuming at the fact that Dr John Watson does not comprehend the knowing powers of dance.  John must have been staring for quite a bit, as Sherlock suddenly dropped his pout and looked away, shoulders stiffening. 

"I'm sorry," John began, stifling a chuckle. He realised he had been poking fun at Sherlock for this unexpected passion of his ever since he found out last Christmas when he caught Sherlock waltzing with himself from the kitchen to the living room, believing John to be soundly asleep. That was a conversation John was sure Sherlock had deleted from his mind palace out of spite, and yet John was resolved to remember every embarrassing, or rather, humanising detail of the event, from Sherlock's bright flush to his incomprehensible stuttering to his final defeated admission of his surprising talent, all of which reminded John now to stop with the jesting.

"That's quite alright, I can see that learning might not be your forte but nevertheless, it is a burden we will both have to bear," Sherlock said affrontedly, meeting John's gaze.

For some reason, John couldn't find it in himself to even be offended anymore, the whole spectacle was just amusing, fondly so, and he told himself that he should really begin to cooperate, since he did call on Sherlock to teach him how to dance in the first place. 

"Look, I'm sorry, really, I just - this is very new," John said sincerely, looking around at their flat, the jarring contrast of the bare centre and over-stacked sides screaming out to him the immediacy of his dreaded endeavour. "I've not ever danced before, not properly, not proper dance, and I - I don't want to." John laughed at himself, looking away. "I don't want to, but I have to."

Sherlock’s expression softened. "Yes, you do. Captain John Watson of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers has to put up a good show, doesn't he?" Sherlock said quietly, almost empathetically, watching his friend uncomfortably come to terms with the fact that he had been invited as a guest of honour to the Veterans’ Royal Gala a few weeks from now, that he'd be expected to dance, that he didn't know how to, and so he had to learn now. 

"It's a little bit sadistic, isn't it?" John began, slowly and awkwardly making his way forward. "Torture, this is. For both of us."

Sherlock ignored the assumption. "There's only so few physically demanding requirements of dance, John. The waltz is one for anyone - all that's needed is the ability to enjoy the luxury of sophistication."

 _Right. It's just coordinated moving,_ John thought to himself.  _With Sherlock._ He drew closer to Sherlock, closing his eyes for a bit to sort out his fraying nerves, and when his eyes fluttered open he was only inches away from the taller man, who was gazing down at him with a silent, unreadable expression, eyes hidden in the shadows cast by his curls. 

"Now tell me, John," Sherlock said in a low, quiet voice. "What are we missing?" Sherlock’s intensity surprised John, his seriousness at the prospect of dance not so much, but the odd expression in his eyes, certainly so. There was an undeniable tension in the air, a side of Sherlock John was unsure existed, a side that was almost… sensual.

John realised he must mirror this intensity, he must take the dance seriously as best he can, and yet he could only gape up at Sherlock, both struggling to confront this rarely seen intensity and searching his mind frantically, painfully aware of the distracted expression on his face and how he must look grappling for an answer he was sure he could never know. 

Sherlock smiled down at John, but it was a playful smile, the kind John was sure only he was privy to.

"Music, John," he said. "What shall we dance to, if not rhythms and melodies?" Without taking his eyes from John he reached out to his side where there was a music player perched on the table, and pressed a button. He looked expectantly at John. 

A violin's song wafted out from the player and John recognised the distinctive style, recognised the tune in fact.

"That's you," he said. "That's you playing. You've been composing this, I've heard you. So you've finished it."

"Yes," Sherlock said, still watching John. 

"It's good. It's uhh - very good." It was mellifluously harmonious, soft and sweet, tenderly floating on bright notes and hushed melodies. John was surprised at the romanticism of the song, how smoothly it coursed through the empty space of the makeshift dancefloor and pulled the two men closer on some plane of musical connection.

"Yes," Sherlock acknowledged, continuing to stare at John, both men with hands behind their back. 

 _I'm expected to do something, aren't I?_ John thought. 

"Err - shall we dance?" he tried.

"Oh, finally," Sherlock groaned, advancing towards John. "As the man you're going to have to lead, and that includes asking the woman to dance."

"That's a shade archaic, isn't it?"

"You're in the army, you should know all about archaic," Sherlock responded sarcastically. "Now ask for my hand."

"What?"

"Ask for my hand," Sherlock repeated, but John continued to stare blankly up at him. "To dance, John," Sherlock explained, his expression softening and the sheer confusion John was experiencing. 

"Oh, right," John stumbled, holding his hand out for Sherlock's.

 _You've really never danced before,_ Sherlock thought sympathetically. And he thought further about John, this man standing before him with his nerves of steel and reserved airs and purposeful gait and strong grip and brave disposition and kind nature and - and all that he was, and wondered why he had never danced before, why he never saw the need to dance, why no one had ever asked him to dance. It was a mystery Sherlock would have to ponder in detail later, for the answer was unimaginable to him now.  _Why wouldn't anyone have danced the waltz with you before?_

He guided John's and his hands up to the correct spot, and then placed his other hand on John's shoulder. John immediately put his hand on Sherlock's hip, and Sherlock cleared his throat.

"Um, higher," he said. 

John flushed and corrected himself, and Sherlock was sure he had never seen John turn red like that before, flustered and embarrassed. 

"It's quite alright not to know, John. After all you've not done this before."

John laughed nervously, looking away.

"Eye contact is not necessary either," Sherlock murmured as an afterthought, thinking it might soothe John's anxieties. "Now, the footwork can be complicated if you don't remember the rules. But if you master those, there's no reason you should stumble if you think ahead."

John nodded, frowning and deep in concentration as Sherlock belted out the rules to him.

"Take it slow, nothing too fancy." As Sherlock dictated the footwork, his own feet moved in accordance, guiding John. They were dancing now, though haltingly, the staple gracefulness of the waltz sordidly lacking.

As they danced, though slow they were, their movements colliding with the stagnant air of their breathing and the empty spaces of the flat, Sherlock realised this was not unfamiliar for them, this physical closeness, and his senses were suddenly overcome with an assault of memories - imprints of past sensory experiences he had come to associate with physical closeness with John, moments they stood face to face and close like this. There were your usual products of five data inputs - the  _sight_  of John's face and hair: sun-kissed and sandy and fluttering lashes and crooked smile, the  _sound_  of his frantic breathing and even sometimes... the faint imagined thumping of a heartbeat, the  _feel_  of John's hands: rough and callused but firm and sure, coupled with the sense of engulfing security so commonly correlated with men of rough and callused hands, the  _scent_  of John's shampoo: muted and clean, mixed with the comforting allure of soft jumpers freshly retrieved from the dryer and earthy tones of soap-washed skin and warm flesh... and the  _taste_  - Sherlock realised there had been nothing to taste as of yet, no tinge of something in the air, whatever it might be. And he willed himself then to imagine what it would be like -

"Ow!" John emphatically cried out as Sherlock stepped on his toes.

"You need to move, John!" Sherlock snapped, as they both continued to dance around the flat, if you could call it dancing.

"Slow down, will you?" John was already transitioning from nervous to grumpy.

 _Predictably so,_ Sherlock thought fondly. 

"Perhaps you're always so grumpy because you don't dance."

John froze and Sherlock nearly collided into him, having already moved into the next step. It was then that it dawned on him, tortuously slow, that he had spoken aloud. 

John had raised his eyebrows in response to what he perceived as impertinence from Sherlock.

"Is that so?" he asked.

Sherlock fumbled with his words. He didn't understand what came over him, why the thought in his mind came out as something spoken... he was mortified, in truth.

"It's just an observation," Sherlock said in a small voice, hoping John would let it slide. He tried to ease into the dance again but John wouldn't budge. He continued to hold their positions, staring penetratingly into Sherlock's overcast eyes. 

"I'm grumpy?" he pried.

"Sometimes. Can we get back to dancing?"

"And I'm grumpy because I don't... dance?"

"Perhaps? I don't know. Can we -"

_"You don't know?"_

"Just ignore what I said, and let us get back to -"

"I thought 'dancing is knowing?' Or did the great Sherlock Holmes stop thinking for a moment there?"

Sherlock bristled.

"Let me go if you're not going to dance," he insisted. 

"Oh, let's dance," John said pointedly, sarcastically, and suddenly a newfound confidence came over him as he suddenly took the lead, pulling Sherlock around the room with him in easy flourishes and smooth transitions. 

"I'm grumpy because I don't dance," John growled in repetition. 

"If you think I was insinuating anything other than my literal meaning -"

"For your information, I do dance," John loudly declared. 

"You said you didn't."

"Not the waltz, perhaps. But I do dance. And I can be quite good at it if I put my mind to it." John still sounded affronted and challenging, his verbal intensity correlating with his aggressively fluid movements. 

"So why don't you?”

"I never felt the need to."

"And now that you need to?"

John grew quiet, staring up at Sherlock. Sherlock realised belatedly that the music player had stopped a few beats ago, his violin song had ended. His glance toward the table prompted John to the same realisation as he let go of Sherlock and stepped back. 

"Well, I guess that's lesson one," he said with a tone of finality.

"Lesson one? You've appeared to master it. Yet you seem to indicate there will be more lessons."

"There are many more forms of dance I am unacquainted with, many more forms of dance I am incompetent at," John said with his eyes narrowed. 

"I never meant that you are -"

"Has it ever occurred to you that there might be one or two things that  _I_ might teach  _you?"_ John demanded, breathing heavily and glaring at Sherlock expectantly. 

 _Of course_.  _And you do._

"Hmm?" John pressed, and Sherlock realised his words had not come out. 

"Damn it!" he exclaimed to himself, out of frustration with the glitches in his mind today, the slip-ups of saying the wrong things and not saying the right things that somehow plagued him only today, when he needed to keep it together most. He turned away and went towards the window, looking out forlornly at the mundane lives of the passersby, wishing for a brief second that this moment could be mundane, too, instead of whatever it is he is going to have to confront now.  

"Sherlock?" John called to him, softly now. His mood seemed to shift from offended to concerned as he watched Sherlock look out the window with his hands pressed together and the tip on his nose perched on those slender fingers. He was deep in thought. 

"I'm sorry," John began, feeling rather silly now for his outburst. "I don't know why I reacted like that. I was nervous with all the dancing and -"

"Why? Why were you nervous? You seemed perfectly capable of learning it and you said that you do actually dance. Why were you nervous?" Sherlock asked, turning around to face John. If today was about confrontation, he deserved to challenge John too.

John swallowed, sure of how sheepish he must look now, standing in the glare of the sunlight from the window feeling stripped bare by its illumination. 

"Because -" He shifted on his feet. "Because I had never danced  _with you."_

With his back to the light, Sherlock was almost engulfed in shadows - it was impossible for John to read his expression. 

"I see," he finally said, moving away from the window and slowly, back to John. He paused for a while, now facing him. "It's just dancing."

"And it's just you," John blurted. He quickly controlled his breathing and looked away, shifting a little more. 

"I'm sorry if I made you feel pressured -"

"No, no, it's not that." John laughed nervously. "It's not that at all."

Sherlock thought for a while.

"Well, I'm sorry if I was too fast -"

"You weren't. Too fast. You weren't - you were... good. It was perfect. I mean, it wasn't too fast."

"Alright." Sherlock was lost for thoughts now, unsure how he should continue the conversation, if it was the right thing to do to continue fishing for what else he should be apologising for. "I hope you have come to appreciate the waltz now," he said lamely, unassuredly.

"I do." 

An awkward silence fell over them, John still averting his eyes nervously, now biting his lip. Sherlock couldn't bear not knowing what was troubling him. 

"Would it help if you taught me something? You said - you asked if it had ever occurred to me that there might be one or two things you might teach me and perhaps it hasn't and you should show me. I taught you something today, it's only fair, isn't it? What shall we learn, I wonder?" Sherlock was trying, desperately, to move past this hump that made the world of the flat eerily devouring.

John stared at Sherlock, reading his desperation, and slowly a smile came over his face. He inched closer to Sherlock.

"Well, what are you lacking?"

Sherlock was confused by the question. "Nothing," he declared. 

"Oh really?" John laughed, softly. "You taught me to dance because I lacked skill in the waltz. And then you said I’m grumpy because I don’t dance enough. You must have some... lack of something. I wonder, what does Sherlock never do, and because he never does it, he becomes a grouch?"

Sherlock's eyes darted around the room, his breathing hitched, his senses overwhelmed once again by the imprint of the sight, the scent, the sound... He swallowed to distract himself from the overload of sensory information, the way John's eyelashes part and fan out, the colour of his eyes, the smell of his skin, the - 

"Taste," Sherlock muttered under his breath, seemingly lost in some fantasy.

"What was that?"

"Nothing - I - I was just thinking about..."

"About?"

"What is lacking." Sherlock's eyes met John's and in that instant, the greens and golds were no longer obscured by the shadows, but they shone now, right into John's own eyes, conveying a deeply profound comprehension of the moment, those ideas and thoughts too deeply felt to be conveyed by simple words...

And it was like John somehow knew, somehow understood what it all meant.

John drew closer to Sherlock, not breaking eye contact. 

"What do you see?" he asked softly. 

Sherlock drew in a deep breath and willed himself then to exercise his complete powers of observation and take in every minute detail of the man standing before him now, to absorb every modicum of data and commit it to a place in his mind where it could be safely preserved as a monument to this moment, this moment that John stood so close to him in so quiet a room and asked him, invited him, to deduce. Sherlock closed his eyes and spoke.

"Gold, light, illumination. On skin. Sandy hair, cropped for utility, but still… boyish, soft. Eyelashes… soft. Beige jumper, the one you wore on our first case, also soft. You, a man, a soldier, a doctor, a blogger, John Watson. You stand with terse posture, framed compactly but powerfully. Burdened by all those titles you hold, by memories, by your shoulder, by a heaviness in the air. But also... you are almost relaxed, almost casual, save for some nerves racking your spine. You're quite still - unusual. Soft.”

John exhaled soflty.

“And what do you hear?” he pressed, as if he knew exactly where Sherlock needed this to go.

“Engulfing silence, with faint hints of traffic filtered out by our window. Only our speech pierces the silence, coupled with our breathing – my own, slower than it normally is, calmer. Yours, ragged and hitched, fighting with your usually restrained, disciplined nature.”

“And what about scent?”

“Oh, it’s… a heady mix. It’s shampoo, it’s fabric softener, it’s soap, it’s skin. It’s your jumper, fresh from yesterday’s wash coupled with the musk of being lived-in for several hours. It’s skin: warm, earthy, natural, it reminds me of sand at a beach or – or scarves strewn across a bed. It's you.” Sherlock’s eyes had been closed the whole time, and he didn’t think he might ever open them again, what with how much he had already let on. He might not be able to face the fact that this was reality, which could only be confirmed by the opening of his eyes.

“And how, what do you feel?”

Sherlock wondered if he had already gone so far that he must now soldier through, or if there was still hope to escape.

“Well, there’s obviously no texture to be felt –”

“No need for that, Sherlock Holmes. You know what I meant.”

Sherlock paused. Was he truly expected to talk about _feelings_ now? Soldier on, it is. Courage.

“My chest tightening, expanding. Tingling fingers, jostled spine, burning warmth. A flush of life, a jolt of slow electricity working in my core. I _feel –_ I feel…”

When Sherlock couldn’t finish his sentence, John helped deduce the end of it.

“Chemical reactions,” he said softly, and Sherlock’s eyes, against his will, fluttered open and he was taken aback by what he saw.

He was met with the burning gaze of John’s deep blues, swimming with tenderness and sizzling with electric desire and soft, so soft with pure, unbridled affection. Sherlock almost felt like he was going to drown in those oceans of azure and aqua before he began comprehending the depth of those eyes, those unending galaxies of supernovas and rolling hills of green pastures and raging stormy seas, and Sherlock felt small in that moment, in his realisation, that the man stood before him meant to him the excitement of those supernovas and the comfort of those pastures and the emotion of those seas, all these things Sherlock now knew to be wholly true and absolute as clearly as he had always known them while engaging in that old silent dance with John of furtive glances and quiet words, that desperately unspoken slow burn of desire.

“Have you ever been kissed?” John suddenly asked.

Sherlock’s voice was stuck in his throat, but he managed to croak,

“Probably not to your standards.”

John nodded knowingly. “Of course not. Do you feel that this is... lacking?”

“Perhaps,” Sherlock said softly.

"Ah, so... should I teach you this one then?"

Sherlock exhaled sharply, eyes darting to meet John's darkened ones, and John moved in closer, eyes hooded and breath slow, his enclosing warmth burning and comforting at the same. His hands began at Sherlock’s shoulder and slipped up to his neck as John looked up at his detective and saw the want in his eyes.

His lips were barely grazing Sherlock’s, the brief touches sending tingles down Sherlock’s spine as the entirety of him focused completely on that singular, fixed spot of a glorious moment. John moved in to eliminate all remaining distance between them both, and it was like they collided in that moment, crashed like burning meteors against a backdrop of an eternal sky full of stars, their lips learning each other and mouths knowing each other, tongues afire with the triumphant completion of their dance, rousingly final and absolute and infinite, immortalised in Sherlock’s mind and felt so, so deeply in his aching chest.

In his mind palace Sherlock filed the moment away in a permanent fixture of bliss: here was John Watson teaching him how to kiss with true passion and desire, here were two men baring their souls to one another in the quiet solace of their cluttered flat, a testament to their fulfilled lives and illustrious memories, and Sherlock's senses were soaring with fulfillment. 

And when John finally pulled away, he smiled most ardently up at his detective and whispered ever so softly with a grin playing on his mouth,

“And what do you taste?”

And for the first time in the history of all the extraordinary happenings in that little flat on Baker Street, Sherlock Holmes had no words.


End file.
